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***

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*** A picture of someone who looks like a doctor but isn't actually me.

Marriage is for Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve

The Government is launching a consultation this month on same-sex marriage for England and Wales and there was a separate consultation for Scotland.

Various arguments have been used against gay marriage, these are some of the favourites:

It's unnatural
This is easily defused by pointing out that natural does not always equal good (eg disease, natural disasters, poisonous plants and venomous animals) while unnatural things are not always bad (technology, medicine, IT, cooking, clothes).

Marriage is traditional
This can be dispatched with a similar argument to the 'unnatural' defence - there are good traditions and bad ones, so in itself, the fact that something is traditional carries no weight. As Deputy Labour leader Harriet Harman said on the Andrew Marr Show: "We have had prejudice, discrimination and homophobia for hundreds of years, that doesn't make it right".

The State/government should not redefine marriage
Cardinal O’Brien, President of the Bishops’ Conference of Scotland and Britain’s most senior Catholic, has said 'No Government has the moral authority to dismantle the universally understood meaning of marriage'.

The Archbishop of York, John Sentamu, has said "I don't think it is the role of the state to define what marriage is."

The State already defines many aspects of marriage. It sets the legal age, who can and can't marry (for example, incest bans and bigamy law), the signing of the register is a requirement to legalise a marriage, the end of a marriage is defined in divorce laws. The State has also changed the rights of women within marriage and therefore the nature of marriage - for example the Married Women's Property Act, legal protection against domestic violence and the Custody of Infants Act.

What's more, Henry VIII as Head of State did exactly that (and started a new tradition while he was at it). He redefined marriage to suit his own ends - and laid the foundations for the Church of England in the process. Which has a certain irony.

Marriage between a man and a woman is a human right.
O'Brien has also said "In Article 16 of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, marriage is defined as a relationship between men and women. … Their proposal represents a grotesque subversion of a universally accepted human right" and "If the Government attempts to demolish a universally recognised human right, they will have forfeited the trust which society has placed in them and their intolerance will shame the United Kingdom in the eyes of the world."

Archbishop Conti of Glasgow issued a statement complaining about ‘the modern preoccupation with human rights’.

Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, with his usual muddled thinking, supports gay equality laws, but not gay marriage.

It would appear that human rights apply only to heterosexuals. Or perhaps gay people are not considered fully human. It's hard to tell, with all the inflated rhetoric flying around. What O'Brien probably means is that gay marriage will shame the UK in the eyes of the Vatican.

Won't somebody think of the children?
Another argument from O'Brien is that "Same-sex marriage would eliminate entirely in law the basic idea of a mother and a father for every child." In schools, children will be forced to learn about gay marriage, he says - "Will both teacher and pupils simply become the next victims of the tyranny of tolerance?".

The tyranny of tolerance. As opposed the the tyranny of intolerance. The kind that leads people to harrass, threaten, discriminate and do violence against others.

It's as if allowing gay marriage would somehow detract from hetero marriage, devaluing it. Straight couples won't feel special any more, poor things.

Is there a law about 'a mother and a father for every child' ? Perhaps a lawyer could advise me on that one.

It's the end of civilization as we know it
O'Brien again: "Those of us who were not in favour of civil partnership, believing that such relationships are harmful to the physical, mental and spiritual wellbeing of those involved, warned that in time marriage would be demanded too. We were accused of scaremongering then, yet exactly such demands are upon us now"

It must be nice to be right. Those pesky gays, give them an inch and they take a mile. The ones who haven't been too damaged by civil partnerships to put a sentence together, anyway.

He continues: 'Redefining marriage will have huge implications ... for wider society. It will redefine society since the institution of marriage is one of the fundamental building blocks of society. The repercussions of enacting same-sex marriage into law will be immense."

People will have to buy a lot more wedding presents, for a start. Society constantly redefines itself, otherwise we'd all still be living in a feudal society tugging our forelocks, pondering whether women have souls and putting little boys up chimneys. Societies that don't evolve become extinct.

But don't worry, civilization already ended when those wooly-headed liberals allowed inter-racial marriage. Many of the same arguments were used against that.

Britain doesn't want it
Translation: Daily Mail and Telegraph readers don't want it. Poll after poll shows that the majority of the population support gay marriage and gay rights (they also support abortion, contraception and the use of condoms to prevent STIs). It's clear that religious leaders don't reflect the views of their flock. But this will not bother them. Their flocks have gone astray and need reminding of basic faith values. Or they will burn in hell.

It's political correctness gone mad
The Coalition for Marriage say that 'People should not feel pressurised to go along with same-sex marriage just because of political correctness'.

Quite right, people should stand up and be proud of their bigotry. No one is saying that people don't have the right to say what they believe (within the law) but it is not their automatic right to have those beliefs given more weight than anyone else's. Some campaigners are claiming that there is now a hierarchy of rights with equalities trumping faith. But what groups like the Coalition want is for faith to trump equalities. They're happy for there to be a hierarchy as long as they're at the top. They claim that 'it's not fair' in the same way small children do when they can't get their own way.

The web site also warns us that 'If marriage is redefined once, what is to stop it being redefined to allow polygamy?'

This is known as the slippery slope/thin end of the wedge argument. It's surprising they didn't throw in 'and kittens will go blind'.

This could be a dig at Muslims or it could be a genuine fear that we are all secretly wanting multiple spouses. As if picking up one set of dirty pants from the bathroom floor wasn't enough (although they probably mean more than one wife because the thought of one woman and two husbands would make their heads explode).

Incidentally, their definition of marriage is 'the voluntary union for life of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others'. So why aren't they campaigning against divorce?

Gay marriage is a vote loser
During the Scottish consultation, Catholic Bishop Tartaglia threatened a rift between Church and Government if gay marriage is legalized. His Church sent 100,000 ‘protest cards’ to its parishioners and asked them to sign a declaration against gay marriage.

Tartaglia may not have noticed that the Catholic Church and the government are not currently joined (or should that be 'married'?). His threat is a very good argument for the separation of Church and State, which would mean that religious leaders couldn't try to blackmail governments.

Equalities Minister Lynne Featherstone has warned the Churches not to polarise the debate (too late). She said "It is the government's fundamental job to reflect society and to shape the future, not stay silent where it has the power to act and change things for the better."

It's a shame this view doesn't extend to other areas of Government policy but at least on this one they're right. For once, the Conservatives are not being conservative.

Some religious groups have come out in support of gay marriage, including a coalition of Unitarians, Liberal Jews, Quakers, the Metropolitan Church and the Pagan Federation. Reverend Holdsworth, the openly gay reverend of an Episcopal church in Scotland said: “To behave as though bishops carry some kind of block vote to Holyrood, to threaten politicians and to decry those who want access to the dignity of marriage as unnatural, to say these things seems to me to go too far. Such comments from the leaders of the Roman Catholic Church have left me feeling embarrassed as a Christian.”

The anti-gay marriage lobby is very vocal, very organised and very well-funded. They will be responding to the consultation in their masses. It's important that anyone who supports gay marriage does too.

ADDENDUM: It has been pointed out to me by an ex-Catholic that the Catholic Church's opposition to gay marriage is partly because dogma is that marriage is for procreation and nothing else. There are also examples of a man in Brazil and another in Italy who were disabled and couldn't have children being denied a Catholic marriage. So if you can't breed (with each other), you can't marry. It all makes perfect sense now.

Doctor Jesus - Government Approved

Two linked stories about religion and health this time.


Dr Richard Scott has been disciplined by the General Medical Council (GMC) for bringing Jesus into the surgery after the mother of a patient complained that Scott preached at her son during a consultation. Scott believes that where Western medicine ends, Jesus can step in. He claims he has seen Jesus curing people and that 'there is a place for Jesus in the surgery'. He also believes that homeopathy works - there is about the same amount of evidence for both of these practices. None.

He describes the 'faith approach' as 'an optional extra' but it's one patients have to actively opt out of.

The Bethesda Medical Centre in Margate where he practices is run by six Christian GPs. The website states: The 6 Partners are all practising Christians from a variety of Churches and their faith guides the way in which they view their work and responsibilities to the patients and employees. The Partners feel that the offer of talking to you on spiritual matters is of great benefit. If you do not wish this, that is your right and will not affect your medical care. Please tell the doctor (or drop a note to the Practice Manager) if you do not wish to speak on matters of faith.

NHS patients should not have to opt out of being preached at. Many people go to the doctor in a vulnerable state and may not feel confident enough to challenge him or her as the balance of power is very much with the doctor in that situation. There is a very big difference between practising medicine and practising Christianity.

Not only did he prescribe a dose of Jesus, he tried to convert the patient whose mother complained, telling him that 'he might find Christianity offers more than his current faith', suggesting the patient went to Scott's church or its Alpha courses. Presumably he's done a randomised, placebo-controlled, peer-reviewed experiment to prove this. He is supposed to be a scientist, after all.

The GMC is very clear that doctors 'must not impose their beliefs on patients, or cause distress by the inappropriate or insensitive expression of religious, political or other beliefs or views.' If the patient wants to lead a conversation about faith then that's a different matter but even then, the doctor should keep his or her views in the background. Even the UK College of Healthcare Chaplaincy, an entirely religious body, describes proselytising as 'spiritual abuse' in its 2005 guidelines.

Scott is not deterred. He believes that the GMC's ruling is further evidence of 'Christians being hammered at work' and is appealing the decision, backed by the Christian Legal Centre who are always quick to jump on any case where they think that Christianity should take precedence over all other rights. You can see a clip of him talking here.

Scott also spoke about referring women to a local Christian abortion counselling centre. It's not surprising that he and an increasing number of others think it is their right to force their beliefs onto people in the workplace and in therapeutic settings. There is an increasingly foetid climate of religion demanding exemption from laws and guidelines. The Government is fuelling this state of affairs by welcoming hard-core believers into health care services with open arms - despite the fact that over 70% of people in the UK (Including reasonable, rational believers) support abortion and contraception.

The new sexual health forum set up to replace the Independent Advisory Group on Sexual Health and HIV will include the Life organisation - but not the British Pregnancy Advisory Service. Life is also a member of the new Sex and Relationships Council recently launched in parliament and endorsed by education secretary Michael Gove - all nine members of this group are either pro-abstinence, anti-abortion or both, including the Silver Ring Thing.

Life said that all members of the forum want to reduce the number of abortions and their motives are secondary. This is disingenuous at best. Life's mission, according to its website 'is to uphold the utmost respect for human life from fertilisation (conception) until natural death' and that it fulfills this mission by 'Offering non-directive counselling and information on pregnancy, pregnancy loss and abortion.' It's hard to see how it can be both pro-life and non-directive.

One of its aims is 'challenging governments and policy makers to adopt policies which reflect and uphold the utmost respect for human life from fertilisation until natural death'. They are opposed to abortion even after rape. The apparent reason for having them on the forum is to bring 'balance' but presumably this means balancing scientific evidence with a position that is neither scientific nor evidence-based.

As if this weren't enough, MP Nadine Dorries thinks that teaching abstinence - but just to girls - will solve everything, including child abuse. And in Richmond, the Catholic Children's Society has been given a contract to advise schoolchildren on contraception and pregnancy.

The abortion rate for under 18s has fallen so this is no time to revisit the Dark Ages of ignorance, judgement and prudery. Virginity is not a precious gift from God. Some of us are getting very weary indeed of saying that abstinence has been proven over and over not to work. These hard-core religious groups claim to be pro-life but it's not the life of women and young people they care about.


More of the Doctor Jesus series here, here, here and here.

The Death of Atheism?

Atheists are breeding themselves out of existence. Or rather, not breeding. The religious, meanwhile, have evolved to go forth and multiply - according to the media.

The first round of 'news' stories was based on a paper called The Reproductive Benefits of Religious Affiliation by Michael Blume. The story has now come back because of a paper by Robert Rowthorn: Religion, fertility and genes: a dual inheritance model

Blume says that religious people have evolved to produce more children than the non-religious, even in developed countries (he cites Switzerland as an example). He suggests that this is because belonging to a religious community provides more co-operation in child-rearing and that such communities particularly benefit women of reproductive age as religion promotes marriage and fidelity.

This got reported (for example in the Sunday Times) as 'over evolutionary timescales of hundreds or thousands of years, atheists had fewer children and the societies they belong to are likely to disappear'.

Evolutionary timescales are rather more than hundreds of years - unless you're a fruit fly. The reporting ignores many other key factors. For example, most atheists have religious parents, they don't just spontaneously generate. There are more openly atheist people now than there have ever been. Figures on church attendance, religious affiliation and belief in the UK, for example, showed a marked decline in younger people - who have yet to breed.

However, in many societies, it is still hard - even dangerous - to be openly atheist; social traditions that encourage and facilitate large families are likely to influence even non-believers who live (covertly) in them. The Atheist Doomsday scenario also ignores the fact that in third world countries, people have more children regardless of their religion because they are needed to work to support the family and because more children die young. The research looks only at birth rates, not long-term survival rates. While a country's religion may encourage this kind of breeding, there are many more factors than faith.

The reporting also assumes that the current geo-political and religious status quo will hold for long enough into the future for evolution to have an effect and for atheists to be wiped out. Moreover, religion may apparently encourage fidelity but human nature is sneaky just like all animal nature. Believers were delighted with March of the Penguins as it appeared to show faithful penguin couples - except they're not. Just like many other animals, penguins have evolved to be opportunistic and will sneak off for some extra-conjugal mating whenever they get the chance. If the punishment for being caught is high (like stoning, say), this may deter some but will just increase ingenuity in others who will pass on the sneaky gene to their children...

Furthermore, how many atheists were there even 2000 years ago let alone 100,000? Without knowing this, we can't even begin to look at any possible evolutionary effects. There was no non-believing control group in the Iron Age.

The Telegraph version of Robert Rowthorn's paper is 'Believers' gene will spread religion, says academic'.

Except he doesn't. Rowthorn posits various possible scenarios. One is that religion becomes more widespread because religious people breed more so the genetic propensity to believe and breed spreads. He mentions the Blume study. But in that study, religiosity is measured by attendance. This may work in most current Western cultures but in some parts of the world, non-attendance is almost impossible because of social pressures. Similarly, in Elizabethan times, it was illegal not to go to church so by that measure, everyone was religious.

In addition, Rowthorn says that 'heritability studies suggest there is currently significant variation in genetic predisposition towards religion'. So not all religous people are equally religious although he does assume that 'all religious adults... have the same fertility irrespective of their genes', which is quite a big assumption.

Another scenario is that religions where people do not marry out will continue to breed at a much faster rate than the rest of the population - he cites the Amish and Haredi Jews as examples. However, Rowthorn points out that while they could vastly increase their numbers, as groups grow, the chances of defection increase as members are more likely to come into contact with outsiders and because it is harder to control larger groups. As people from third world countries move to the West, there will be economic restraints on having very large families to factor in.

He doesn't look at the problems of inbreeding in such groups, which may reduce survival fitness as harmful mutations spread.

Finally, he posits a scenario where defectors from religions take their religious genes with them. Presumably these are the weaker variants or people wouldn't be able to lose their religion in the first place. Going with his argument, these defectors will take their genes into the general population where they will manifest themselves in secular ways, for example as a respect for authority. He doesn't consider, for example, the fact that some defectors leave because they are gay and can live openly in mainstream society. The likelihood of them breeding is considerably reduced (although not eliminated).

Two rather over-simplified papers base their findings on very narrow parameters and assumptions, ignore complicating factors and other potential influences (culture, economics for example) even though genes never work in isolation but in tandem with the environment. They are reported as heralding the death of atheism.

It's true that some developed countries are producing fewer children. Just to muddy the waters, the birth rate in Italy and Ireland, strongly Catholic countries, is also falling as people ignore the priests and control their fertility.

While some religious groups in this country might be only too happy to see the death of the 'Dawkins' gene, they might also like to consider the scare stories about how Muslims will out-breed all other groups in Europe. Not so smug now, then.

Freedom of Expression Under Seige

There's a scene near the end of the Rutles movie, All You Need is Cash, where Eric Manchester, the Rutle Corp Press Agent (played by Michael Palin), says: Suddenly, everyone became amazingly litigious. I remember I'd get up in the morning. Sue someone. Check in the papers that I hadn't been fired. Go to the office. Sue someone. Pick up the morning's writs. Sue the bank. Go out for lunch. Sue the restaurant. Get back in, collect the writs that had been received that afternoon. Read the papers. Phone the papers. Sue the papers. Then go home. Sue the wife.

Freedom of expression is currently under attack and it's no joke.

Firstly, there's Twittergate. Paul Chambers tweeted a not especially funny remark and has lost his job, got a criminal record and is facing a fine of thousands of pounds after an appeal at the Crown Court failed. Martin Robbins covers the story here. Chambers tweeted: Crap! Robin Hood airport is closed. You've got a week to get your shit together, otherwise I'm blowing the airport sky high!! He was found guilty under section 127 of the 2003 Communications Act:

Improper use of public electronic communications network
(1)
A person is guilty of an offence if he—
(a)
sends by means of a public electronic communications network a message or other matter that is grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character; or
(b)
causes any such message or matter to be so sent.
(2)
A person is guilty of an offence if, for the purpose of causing annoyance, inconvenience or needless anxiety to another, he—
(a)
sends by means of a public electronic communications network, a message that he knows to be false,
(b)
causes such a message to be sent; or
(c)
persistently makes use of a public electronic communications network.
(3)
A person guilty of an offence under this section shall be liable, on summary conviction, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months or to a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale, or to both.
(4)
Subsections (1) and (2) do not apply to anything done in the course of providing a programme service (within the meaning of the Broadcasting Act 1990 (c. 42)).

Then there's Dalia Nield who is under threat of being sued for saying that a cream which claims to increase bust size 'by up to 8.4%' is unlikely to work. Nield is a prominent plastic surgeon and has serious concerns about both the efficacy and the safety of Boob Job cream. According to the website, 'Boob Job works with your natural fat cells. As the fat cells move around the body after eating, boob job 'blocks' the fat into the area where the product has been applied, so the bust and décolleté areas. You will see a gradual increase in cup size within 56 days as well as gaining an instant lifting and firming effect.'.

Then there is the couple suing the RSPB which said that the couple's research may have harmed the black grouse that they were studying and that their methods were 'untried and untested'.

The Campaign for Libel Reform lists many others who either have been sued or who are threatened.

It's important to remember that it's not just the UK's shameful libel laws that are threatening freedom of expression. There is 'defamation of religion', a tactic used by some religious groups to shut down any criticism or even discussion of beliefs and practices. These religious groups claim the right not to be offended, questioned, challenged or called to account. The National Secular Society has written a document about the dangers here (in the interests of full disclosure, I wrote some of it).

As Resolution 1510 (2006)4 of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe points out: 'What is likely to cause substantial offence to persons of a particular religious persuasion will vary significantly from time to time and from place to place'. Offence is a good tactic because it's so subjective, personal and nebulous.

Another tactic is to claim so-called Christianophobia or Islamophobia or to conflate race with religion, stifling debate with accusations of persecution and racism.

Resolution 1510 (2006) by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe states that:
1. The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe reaffirms that there cannot be a democratic society without the fundamental right to freedom of expression. The progress of society and the development of every individual depend on the possibility of receiving and imparting information and ideas. This freedom is not only applicable to expressions that are favourably received or regarded as inoffensive but also to those that may shock, offend or disturb the state or any sector of the population, in accordance with Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ETS No. 5).

In the UK, the crime of religiously aggravated offence introduced in 2006 represents a new kind of blasphemy law and the crime of religiously aggravated insulting behaviour carries a sentence of up to 7 years in prison. The original blasphemy law was abolished in March 2008. Professional offence-takers in religious communities have already begun to exploit this new avenue of restricting criticism and comment.

A sample of attempts by religious groups to stifle freedom of expression:

Waterstones bookshop was threatened by Christian Voice and cancelled a reading at a Cardiff branch by Welsh poet Patrick Jones.

A statue by the artist Terrence Koh at the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead provoked outrage and condemnation by Christians.

Behzti, a play depicting rape in a Sikh temple, provoked violent protests and thousands of pounds of damage at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre in December 2004. The theatre was forced to cancel the play on safety grounds and playwright Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti fled into hiding after receiving death threats.

The London exhibition of the work of Maqbool Fida Husain was closed after threats of violence from Hindu fundamentalists in 2006.

Jerry Springer – the Opera provoked street protests, threats to theatres and the publicizing of private addresses of BBC executives after it was shown on television - even though most of the complainants hadn't even seen it.

And of course, there was the Danish cartoons incident. More recently, religious groups tried to get a TV advert for Marie Stopes clinics banned and an ice cream ad was banned by the ASA after just six complaints because it showed two priests about to kiss.

Freedom of expression, scientific debate and even the ability to make flippant remarks on Twitter can no longer be taken for granted. Do not criticise me, do not question me, do not challenge me and, above all, do not offend me. Dark days.